MAIS

About MAIS

Temple Consulting Group offers completely integrated solutions for Local Governments, Municipalities. MAIS (Municipal Accounting and Information System) is specifically adapted for Local Governments and provides a comprehensive solution with the future in mind. As a result, clients benefit from applications that are integrated, flexible, affordable and technically advanced.

As an ongoing commitment to clients, Temple Consulting Group provides solutions that are based on current technology. MAIS has successfully transitioned clients through several generations of technology. The software solutions use Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and PROGRESS ® database management system.

MAIS (Municipal Accounting and Information System) is a fully integrated suite of over 20 modules. MAIS is a proven product that meets the needs of local government. MAIS is currently installed and running at various municipalities in the US and Canada, with new municipalities joining the list of satisfied MAIS users every year.

MAIS Software is:

True Client/Server

Windows based

Fourth generation language (4GL)

Relational Data Base Management System (RDBMS)

Open and Server independent

Modular and totally integrated

Microsoft compliant

System-Wide Features:

Automatic posting of inter fund balancing transactions

Toggle back to prior years information

Comprehensive on-line help

User-defined fields in every module to keep data unique to your needs

Scanning and retrieval capabilities in every module, if Scanning is purchased

Forms printing to user created MS Word template or pre-printed forms

Full validation of fields

Records history of all changes made to master files

XPrint printing technology for all reports allows canned reports to be quasi-customized for each workstation

Ability to reprint all G/L posting reports with original posting date and time

All billing modules tied to central cash receipting module

Ability to look up outstanding balances for all billing modules from any billing module

Accounts Payable

The Accounts Payable is an easy-to-use module that meets the payable clerk’s demands for fast, efficient processing of invoices and payments. Accounts Payable is fully integrated, where applicable, to General Ledger, Purchase Orders, Work Management, and Fixed Assets. All distribution to the General Ledger is fully automatic.

Highlights:

Integration to Purchase Orders populates all details from the PO–creating an invoice automatically with the ability to override any detail as necessary–eliminating duplicating keying.

The system will not allow the same invoice to be entered twice for a vendor–eliminating double entry and/or duplicate payments.

Budget checking for availability of funds can be run at the fund, department or line item level and overridden by password.

Sales taxes can be automatically calculated on invoices or input by the AP clerk

Automatic look-ups for vendors, purchase orders, general ledger numbers, fixed assets, work order numbers provide for an easy search for any piece of information.

Posting of invoices with purchase orders automatically de-encumber funds originally encumbered by the Purchase Order.

Each vendor master record includes local name and address, payee name and address (if different), easy-to-read outstanding invoice, paid invoices and payments browsers, all with drilldown capabilities.

Unlimited user-definable fields enable the District to identify and store additional fields of information that are unique to its purposes.

A vendor can be placed on hold, preventing any payments from processing for that vendor. An invoice can be placed on hold. Partial holdbacks (retain age) can be placed on an invoice and released for payment as needed.

Invoices can be selected for payment based on invoice due date on a range of vendors, by individual supplier and invoice, by Accounts Payable batch. Removal from the selected payments can be processed with the same criteria or individually. Efficient cash management is facilitated by the invoice due date selection.

Used with the Scanning option, invoices and other documents can be scanned and retrieved, reducing the need to revisit paper files which may be kept offsite. This also saves time pulling invoices for auditors.

Accounts Receivable

The Accounts Receivable module provides the District with a flexible billing system for Miscellaneous Accounts Receivable that allows for either centralized or de-centralized invoice processing. This module is fully integrated with General Ledger, Cash Receipting, and Property Information and Taxation.

Highlights:

Using subsystems, the District can choose to generate invoices different in appearance and content for each subsystem. This feature allows, for example, the Police Department to print a totally different invoice than the Parks Department.

Products or frequently billed items can be set up with price, general ledger distribution and sales tax defaults preset to speed up data entry and reduce invoicing errors.

Allows billing of sold Inventory with default mark up percentage. The default mark up can be overridden, but will be notated in posting reports.

Easy-to-update database of customers with searches by account number, name, contact name, phone number, property tax roll number, and invoice number allows front-line and telephone support personnel to serve the public with little or no initial information provided.

Reminder notices and statements can be generated for one customer or a range of customers.

Aging reports and outstanding invoice reports can be generated by customer, by subsystem or for all customers. Generating reports by subsystem allows departments to manage collections more efficiently.

Apply prepayments (customer deposits) to invoices easily.

Allows for multiple rates of late charges.

Payments are processed through the Cash Receipts module.

Animal License

The MAIS Animal License module provides local government with processes for licensing, notification, assessment of penalties and reporting. The module is fully integrated with MAIS General Ledger, Cash Receipting and Property Taxation modules.

Highlights:

The Master License file can be searched online by Account, Owner Name, Pet Name, Bill to Address, the Current Year Tag #, the Prior Year Tag #, Breed and Property Tax ID. (if the MAIS Taxation module is used)

An unlimited number of User-Defined fields allow each local government to record information on accounts that meets their needs without paying for programming changes.

With a simple click, users can immediately view Billing, Payment, Adjustment and Penalty transactions for any account.

Unlimited number of Fee codes

Penalties can be calculated as an amount or as a percentage

Reports include

Master file listings by Account, Tag No and Owner

Outstanding Licenses by Account, Address and Owner

Local government has the option to issue only Tags or also print a Animal License

Asset Management

Asset Management provides full control over asset acquisition, depreciation and total life time cost for departmental assets. You can track fixed assets, create accurate, comprehensive management reports, and provide a clean audit trail. You can also integrate a maintenance scheduler and keep track of contractors responsible for such maintenance tasks.

Finance Controls:

Acquisition of Asset.

Capitalize Asset.

Annual Depreciation.

Sale of Asset.

Depreciation Method:

Straight Line

Declining Balance

Expense in First Year

Custom

Finance Controls:

Acquisition of Asset.

Capitalize Asset.

Annual Depreciation.

Sale of Asset.

Reports:

Depreciation Projection (detailed/summarized)

Asset Lists/Labels

Amortization

Asset Transfer

Disposed Assets

Current/Prior depreciation analysis

Transaction listing report

Budgeting

The Budgeting module provides the ultimate in convenience when preparing budget data. MAIS Budgeting offers you the ability to budget with traditional Line Item budgeting. Activity-based budgeting, together with an activity or project-based General Ledger and Work Management, present a powerful tool for measuring the cost of each service provided to the community. Temple also offers a 10-year budgeting and strategic planning module.

Highlights:

Up to 10 budget cycles are provided, keeping a full record of each phase of the budget process and budget revisions. Security provides restricted access at each stage of the budget process. Each budget cycle can be a Work in Progress or Frozen

Municipalities can mix and match budgeting methods–choosing line item budgeting for some areas and activity-based budgeting for other

By copying from one budget cycle to another, users can reduce time spent in their budgeting process, using any existing budget in the system as the starting point for their work.

A broad range of budget reports show variances in dollars and percentages, comparisons with prior years, budget to actual, and multiple budget phase/revision comparisons.

Reports can also be generated with the Progress Report Builder and saved as regular menu items for quick, custom reports

Department heads can input their budget from their remote locations

Line item budgeting provides the ability to enter and print detailed budget information with text–eliminating the need to keep spreadsheets with budget detail.

Increase or decrease budget line items in the copy process by applying percentage changes to ranges of accounts or masked ranges of accounts. Overwrite or ýadd toý existing data.

Managers can identify the costs to complete one unit–clean one manhole, for example. Multiplying the cost by the number of units to be accomplished in the budget year quickly provides justification for budget amounts.

This method enables managers to quickly update council about the effects of service to the community in the face of budget cuts or increases.

Activity-based budgeting allows managers to be pro-active in reviewing ongoing costs compared to budget–enabling identification of what part of the cost–labour, overhead, equipment, supplies or other expenses have gone astray. Management is then empowered with powerful knowledge for taking action to correct the activities. Also see Work Management.

Master browser shows previous 3 years actual, previous 3 years budgets and 10 years of future budget figures for each line item

Provides for unlimited lines of detail per line item

Allows creation of general ledger line items for future use. Imports any ýnewý accounts into chart of accounts when budget is copied to current year work plans.

Building Permits

The MAIS Permitting module provides government a complete solution for issuing permits and their related inspections and approval processes. The module is integrated with Cash Receipting, Property Taxation, and the Business License module.

Highlights

Permit categories are user-defined–such as Zoning, Planning, and Building

Various permits under each category are set up with requirements for approvals, inspections and rates

Rates can be flat fees, per unit fees, construction value fees, construction area and other methods

Rate for re-inspections can be assessed

Selection of a permit type by the user will populate automatically rates, approvals, inspection and re-inspection fees and required inspections automatically

As with all MAIS modules, unlimited user-defined fields allow municipalities to record related information, such as County or Province permit numbers associated with this permit, without requiring customized programming.

Business License

Seamless integration to General Ledger, Property Taxation and Information, Cash Receipting, and Building Permits modules make Business Licence processing easy for the licensing department or central collections to process payments and issue licences.

Finance (General Ledger)

The Finance module is the heart of financial record keeping and reporting. All MAIS modules are fully integrated with the General Ledger module. As a true municipal accounting system, the MAIS system automatically generates all inter-fund balancing journal entries from every transaction in every subsystem. MAIS provides a fully automated bank reconciliation program.

Highlights:

The chart of accounts can be structured with up to ten segments–each segment can be 1 to 10 digits in length.

Ten user-defined segments are available to attach to (and detach from) general ledger accounts to provide the District with powerful and flexible financial reporting capabilities, extending beyond the numerical limitations of most general ledger applications.

General Ledger transactions to source transactions from all other modules can be accessed through drilldowns. Accessing transactions such as timecards input, accounts payable invoice entry and business licence payments through drilldowns eliminates the need of tracing transactions through printed reports or offsite source documents.

General Ledger Transaction Inquiry can used to view current month, year-to-date, encumbrances, various budget cycles, budget-to-actual variances and prior years’ information in a mouse-click. All current and historical financial information is at your fingertips.

Search capabilities in all General Ledger browsers are provided by account number and account description.

A comprehensive suite of financial reports enable users with complete control over account ranges, page breaks, totals, dates, comparative budget cycles, summary or detail, including or excluding zeros, and other reporting options. Users can save time in generating frequently used reports by saving the report as a menu item.

Templates for recurring journal entries reduce time spent in generating frequently occurring transactions. Users have the opportunity to make changes for each period prior to posting.

Users can work in multiple open years simultaneously

Accounting periods are defined by the user

Bank Reconciliation feature fully automated.

Inventory

The Inventory module enables the District to track, order efficiently, receive and issue products with complete integration with Purchase Orders, General Ledger, and Fixed Assets.

Online Solutions

Major utility and local government agencies have offered online bill payment for years and now small municipalities are considering e-payments and self-service items as an option for convenience for citizens and save money.

In today’s computerized world, your staff, tax payers and clients in general are expecting to have immediate access to their bills, inquire on current water consumption to better manage their water conservation efforts, so MAIS Software places your District at the convenience of everyone’s schedule! MAIS is also offering credit card payment on arrears accounts by means of an alternative to collection efforts; so again, the possibilities for the service are endless.

MAIS wants to offer this service to communities where counting on their own IT department or even a webmaster is out of the question. MAIS has fully integrated these services with your existing MAIS software, enabling the proposed e-payment approach in a very short implementation time, not only on the cash management component, but also the ability to inquire on their own customer account online prior to posting a payment: tax balances, utility balances or status of a building permit.

MAIS is pleased to present the schedule of fees and cost for your consideration. Keep in mind that the cost benefit of providing your citizens with the ability to pay, inquire on balances, reprint bills or certificates, as well as set email notices on what is going on at City Hall (maintenance alerts, etc) will save staff time, paper, postage, costly printer cartridges. On average sending a one page bill costs $1.50 per unit.

Payroll

MAIS Payroll meets federal, province, and local government reporting requirements, and provides for complete department and fund allocations. Fully interfaced to General Ledger, Work Management, Fixed Assets/Equipment Maintenance and Budgeting, MAIS Payroll is the complete solution.

Highlights:

Handles weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, bi-weekly

Multiple options for time card entry

Start and stop dates for deductions

Ability to view all prior payroll earnings and deductions on line

Pay rate changes can be entered in advance with effective date

Accrual of sick and vacation time

Accrual of hours/pay worked but not paid (banked overtime)

Complete drill down to actual hours worked from the General Ledger

Automated encumbrances at time of timecard entry

Ability to produce a payroll cheque or direct deposit

Complies with all Federal and State report requirements

Unlimited deductions/earning types with full reporting

Reports:

Audit Trail reports including G/L distribution

Timecard entry

Calculation reports

Record of employment

Year end income reporting

Point of Sale Cash Receipting

Cash Receipting is your cash register. It is completely interfaced with all MAIS billing modules, providing real-time posting to accounts and sub ledgers with General Ledger posting at the day-end balancing.

Highlights:

Any MAIS workstation can be a cash register, allowing for centralized or de-centralized cash receipting.

Quick, easy entry of all cash transactions is facilitated by search capabilities into all MAIS billing modules. Cashiers can quickly see any outstanding amounts associated to a property.

Multiple payments can be accepted, producing a single receipt.

Transactions can be placed on hold for the taxpayer that forgets his wallet, allowing front-line personnel to continue processing payments during peak collections periods–reducing taxpayer and clerical woes.

Reports include detailed and chronological report of receipts, receipts by sub ledger and day-end general postings.

Property Taxation & Information

The Property Taxation & Information is a complete Property Information resource. This module, along with General Ledger, is part of the backbone of MAIS. All other modules are linked to Property Taxation. A cross-referencing feature in the system allows users to look up amounts due or open accounts in all modules where a particular property identification link has been found.

Highlights

Assessment, taxation and ownership data from the local assessment authority can be downloaded as often as required without disturbing the underlying permanent data for properties.

Meets all British Columbia requirements.

Separate ýownerý fields for current owner and listed owner.

Tax bills can be printed on pre-printed forms, on a Microsoft Word mail merge letter template or sent to file for outsourced printing.

Special taxations based on frontage, assessment value, or flat parcel taxes can easily be assigned to a group of properties or to individual properties.

Record Mortgage Information for generating notices to mortgage holders.

Purchasing

The Purchasing module is fully integrated with the Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Inventory Control, Fixed Assets, and Work Management modules. Funds are immediately encumbered and reportable in General Ledger reporting.

On-line searches by Vendor number and Purchase Order number facilitate easy inquiry about the status of purchase orders–invoices paid, stock received and funds encumbered. Change views to look at new requisitions, approved, issued, completed and voided POs.

Large free-form Remarks Tab can be printed on purchase order–to keep all pertinent information on line and at your fingertips rather than on a separate paper in a file cabinet.

Over expenditures can be controlled with password override required to post Purchase Orders that would cause an over budget situation.

Limit invoice input in Accounts Payable to those Purchase Orders that have ýreceivedý items.

System Security

The Security module is an integral part of the MAIS system. MAIS security can be as simple as having valid users who see all available menu items. However, if users are to be restricted from menus, from data storage, from posting to general ledger, MAIS security provides you all the security you need.

Security begins with the System Operator. The System Operator is the only client user who has the ability to set up users, assign access to modules and menu items, rights to view or change data and posting rights to general ledger accounts. The System Operator needs no programming knowledge to carry out security administration duties. The MAIS Security system defines the rights of individuals or groups of individual through the use of groups.

The first group used in Security is Menu Groups. The Menu Group defines which ‘module icons’ will appear to users assigned to the group and which ‘menu items’ will appear. The module accommodates an unlimited number of menu groups such as Administration, Public Works, Finance, Finance w/Payroll, Recreation, etc. Alternatively, the Town can assign any individual his/her own menu group if a totally unique menu is required.

The second group used in Security is G/L Groups. General Ledger accounts access can be restricted or enabled by user group and/or by user. An example of this feature is that City Council could provide for a department to issue their own purchase orders; but restrict that department from expensing them to the wrong accounts and expense types. Another example is a department manager could have access to the payroll postings within his department only.

The third feature is Attributes. This feature allows the System Operator to restrict ‘add’, ‘store’ and ‘delete’ capabilities from any user or menu group for a specific master file or input program.

Utility Billing

The MAIS Utility Billing module provides a comprehensive system of billing for multiple services, such as Water, Sewer, Solid Waste, and Recycling with a complete Complaint Log/Work Order system.

Highlights:

Fully integrated with General Ledger, Cash Receipting and Fixed Assets.

Ability to handle an unlimited number of customers and an unlimited amount of customer history. The amount of data stored is constrained only by the amount of hard disk storage.

Utility payments are processed through the MAIS Cash Receipting module. Payments update the utility accounts immediately. General Ledger is updated when the cash register is cashed out for the day.

Changes to rates and rate structures can be input with ýeffective datesý. Rates can be changed for one group of customers without affecting others. Rate changes are accomplished by simply updating a table of rates. Metered rates can be set for tiered pricing based on volume.

Ability to calculate user discounts, credits and surcharges.

Invoice programs and printing of customer bills in the format requested with detail for all metered and non-metered charges and miscellaneous fees, including fees generated by work orders.

Meter ýexceptioný reports indicating accounts with no meter reading for the billing period to allow rereads to occur prior to billing.

Customer bills in format required.

Consumption report.

Aged accounts due.

Through system control code, determine the sequence of charges to which payments will be applied. This can be overwritten at the Cash Register and changed system-wide should policies change.

Customer accounts and records, both active and inactive, can be looked up by account number, name, street address, billing address, route, and meter address (also tax roll number if Taxation module is used).

Account balances can stay with the inactive customers until paid or adjusted out.

New accounts can be input into the database with a status of Hold until it goes online. New accounts can be queried by name, address and all other data fields as active and inactive accounts.

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